Van Brimmer: Swainsboro mother takes couponing to the 'extreme'

Rudy Randall is Emanuel County’s most extreme couponer and has become a local legend beyond cashiers’ circles. She runs a website, fun2bfrugal.com, and draws packed rooms for coupon classes across Southeast Georgia. (Photo taken from Facebook).

Rudy Randall’s arrival at the supermarket used to get the cashiers plotting.

Randall would strut into the Swainsboro Piggly Wiggly or Walmart every Wednesday morning, a plastic storage bin tucked under her arm. She’d grab a buggy or two and hit the aisles.

The veterans would monitor Randall’s shopping progress. They’d cozy up to the unsuspecting new checkout girl and ask if she’d cover them for a break in a few minutes.

The supposed nicotine urge or hunger pangs would hit about the time Randall wheeled toward the far end of the store.

By the time the stay-at-home mom slipped her first case of barbecue sauce or dozen bottles of dish soap onto the belt, told the sucker at the register she’d be doing dozens of transactions and pulled the first fistful of coupons out of her box, the vets would be laughing about it in the back.

Randall is Emanuel County’s most extreme couponer and has become a local legend beyond cashiers’ circles. She takes her message nationwide this week. She’ll be featured on the season premier of the TLC cable network series “Extreme Couponing.” The show airs at 10 p.m. Tuesday.

She hopes the episode educates, as well as entertains.

“When I first started couponing, sometimes I was almost embarrassed — and my husband was always embarrassed,” Randall said. “But now, if you’re not using coupons, you should be embarrassed.”

Couponing since college

The Randalls first shunned Sunday afternoon football in favor of coupon strategy five years ago.

Rudy and her husband Chase were both college students in Atlanta at the time. But unlike other penny-pinching co-eds, they weren’t saving for beer money. They were new parents.

“All the baby products were adding up and it was like ‘What in the world?’” Rudy Randall said. “That’s what got us couponing on a college budget.”

Rudy soon was taking couponing to the extreme. She learned that combining coupons with sales at stores with double-couponing policies often meant carts full of free stuff.

And as her hauls grew bigger and less expensive, she began documenting them. She would bring her groceries home, arrange them symmetrically on the kitchen counter and photograph them. She has albums of her favorite shopping trips.

Now living in Swainsboro with Chase and three children, she’s “committed” to coupon shopping in what her husband describes as an obsessive compulsive way. She’s turned her home’s laundry room into her “stockpile room” with perfectly organized shelves of goods. The stockpile currently contains $3,500 worth of food and household products. She paid less than $200.

Her stock includes some products the Randalls will never use, like 300 dog collars (they don’t own a dog), more than 100 razors (they’re not that hairy) and dozens of diabetes meters (they’re not diabetic). But Rudy refutes the notion that she’s a hoarder.

“If you can get it for free, get it,” she said. “We give the collars to the animal shelters. I pick up diabetes meters and donate them to nursing homes. Extra toiletries and household stuff can go to churches and shelters.

“You can help out a lot of people and not just yourself.”

Family outing

The weekly shopping trip is an event for the Randalls.

Chase will often tag along to monitor the festivities but admits he has little control.

When in the store, Chase said, “know your role and shut your hole.”

And like all small children, the Randall kids are prone to grab their favorite foods off the shelves and put it in the cart. But instead of asking mom “Can we get this?” the Randalls inquire “Do we have a coupon for this?”

“If yes, they will put it in the buggy,” Rudy said. “If no, they’ll still but it in the buggy, but I’ll put it back when they’re not watching.”

As for the cashiers, they’re still watching for Rudy. But instead of “all but running and hiding” at the sight of her coming in the store, the clerks are fighting each other for the right to check Randall out.

“That way they know what is on sale,” Randall said. “It’s definitely a different experience now than it used to be.”

Adam Van Brimmer’s column appears each Monday. He blogs several days a week at www.savannahnow.com and also is a social media regular @avanbrimmer on Twitter and Daddy Warbucks on Facebook.

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Extreme couponing was fun back when only a few of us did it. But then social media and the TLC show came along. Manufacturers aren't stupid-- they can't make a profit by giving their products away for free to more and more people. They have drastically pulled the reigns in and the coupons out there are not what they used to be. Definitely not worth hours of my week anymore.

Good for those who still have time/energy to pull it all together. Wish it wasn't so widely publicized. Won't be long before coupons go extinct all together.

All too often you clear the shelves of a product someone else needs but doesn't need six.

Retailers - please dedicate a coupon lane for shoppers with more than one transaction - and enforce it. I dislike leaving my gallon of milk on your belt as I walk away after the cashier/customer pair start their fourth transaction.

Its great to save so much money! However, coupons are usually for the most unhealthy foods-- processed foods. The manufacturers can afford to give this junk away because it is the cheapest to manufacture from massive quantities of wheat, corn, sugar, fat, salt, and chemicals. The costs you'll pay will be to your health combined with the long term medical costs. Eat whole foods instead. Your body and your health will thank you for it!